A company called FreedomPop has launched a free wireless data plan in major metropolitan areas around the United States. The company is giving out Wi-Fi hotspots, and USB dongles to tens of thousands of users reports The Verge. During the public beta, users will be able to use 500 MB of free wireless data per month in the covered areas.

If you live in an area where Clearwire offers WiMAX connectivity, you should be able to access the FreedomPop beta network. The dongles and hotspots being given out aren't free, however. Users pay $49.99 for a USB dongle or $89.99 for a wireless hotspot; that price is fully refundable (within the first 30 days) according to the company and is considered a deposit. If 500MB/month is not enough for you, you can get 2GB/month for $17.99 or 4GB/month for $28.99.

The company is also planning to launch sleeves that will work with the iPhone and iPod Touch at the same $99 rate in the next few weeks.

FreedomPop plans to switchover to Sprint's LTE network next year. Customers that have already purchased a WiMAX-based connection device can return them to FreedomPop for credit towards an LTE-based device.

The service marks one of the first “freemium” mobile broadband offerings and joins the likes of Netzero’s 200MB/month service. FreedomPop hopes that enough users will opt to pay for larger data allotments helping to subsidize the free offering.

Users of the network can get additional free access with awards of 10 MB per month for recruiting new users for the network. Users will also be given small chunks of data for doing things such as browsing a website, earning 3 MB of data, or 1.2 GB of free access for things such as subscribing to LoJack laptop protection software.

The service requires no contracts, and has no activation or cancellation fees.

Wow that one apparently went way over your head. Lemme explain it for ya there bud. Sprint rolled out '4G' a ways back using WiMax as a means to do so. They promised this '4G' and thus '4G' speeds across WiMax. Here's the rub... 1.2 down / .3 up (what I saw on average) isn't '4G'... it's not even 3.5G. Hell, not even 3G. See here: http://www.dailytech.com/Sprint+is+Biggest+Loser+i...

So yeah my point still stands (which you didn't get)... wimax is slow as hell and it would be brutal to have it slowed down even further.

Right, but there's a difference between throttling and just getting shitty service. For years people on Sprint have been complaining about crappy 3G speeds. (Things finally seem to be getting better due to Network Vision upgrades, but that's a different conversation) The term "Throttling" implies that there is an active measure in place slowing down your speeds, normally put into place after a certain amount of data usage in a period excess of a cap. I've seen people getting reasonable speeds from WiMax nothing great, and certainly not LTE category, but usable. I have also heard of people getting terrible speeds on WiMax... it's location and situation dependent. If a tower is overloaded because there isn't enough bandwidth in the backhaul, or you are at the edge of a service range doesn't mean you are getting "Throttled" it means that you have crappy service.

In short: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

It's like having dial up throttled and blaming it on shitty service ("I got 92k where I live- I don't know what your problem is"). OK whatever. It could just be that wimax was never meant to be fast - but hey, that's just my opinion.

You get what you pay for and at $15 for 2GB it is implied with wimax and low fees to be slow.

I for one think you had it correct, since for now they're using Clearwire.

My experience with Clearwire about a year back was that they did have a higher advertised speed that, no, most of us wouldn't call throttling.

But, as soon as they peg you as a user that might DARE use the service, then yes, they'd throttle you in to the stone age. Don't take my word for it, hit up Google, the internet and their own message boards are full of complaints, and I even got a notice in the mail of Clearwire settling a class action lawsuit. The lawsuit was on the grounds they made it tricky to quit, but that was only an issue because of throttling.

So, yeah, Clearwire specifically does throttle even just moderate users. And again, as of about a year ago, if you got high enough up on the tech support chain, they'd admit it -- then try to sell you business class service, which, woops, throttles too.